2021 marked the year that Fuji Xerox become FUJIFILM Business Innovation and started launching their own product range. While still supplying most print engines to Xerox, FUJIFILM Business Innovation is set to become a major digital printing player on its own. Get ready for an emerging major player in digital print.
We might remember the tumultuous times back in 2018 which led to FUJIFILM Holdings and Xerox dissolve their long, close relations—instead of their joint venture Fuji Xerox merging with Xerox, which would have given Fujifilm the overall control. With so many other happenings recently, the further developments moved out of the common focus. Slowly but surely, the process is gaining steam, however. An important milestone was reached on Fuji Xerox’s decision to end the Technology Agreement with Xerox Corporation on the agreement’s expiration date, March 31, 2021. Additionally, Fuji Xerox was renamed FUJIFILM Business Innovation in April 2021 and started to launch new products under a new brand name.
Even as the activities seemed low-key so far, they can have wide-ranging implications as Fuji Xerox is by no means a small business. Established in 1962 as a joint venture, the company started to sell and manufacture copiers and printers in the Asia-Pacific region (including Japan, but excluding India). Over the years, Fuji Xerox did develop and manufacture most products sold by Xerox. In FY 2020, the former Fuji Xerox business segment generated revenues of ¥854 billion, which equates to about US$7.8 billion and had about 37,000 employees (consolidated). This compares to US$7 billion revenue for Xerox Corporation in FY 2020 (after $9.1 billion for FY 2019).
The Technology Agreement between Xerox and Fuji Xerox gave both companies exclusive access to products and exclusive sales rights in the respective regions. After ending the agreement, both companies are free to sell in all geographies and take on different products. Nevertheless, FUJIILM Business Innovation does maintain its product supply agreements with Xerox and views Xerox as a close partner. FUJIFILM Business Innovation is even still selling some Xerox manufactured products as the Nuvera in its territories.
The New Brand: Revoria
As a sign of the Technology Agreement expiring and moving into a new business era Fujifilm introduced a new brand name for production printers. FUJIFILM Business Innovation gave some explanations on choosing the brand name:
“The new brand name, “Revoria,” is derived from the blending “revolution” and the suffix “-ia,” which means a country or land. By revolutionizing the production printing business, the company aims to cultivate new “lands” and create unprecedented value. The brand name also incorporates “reborn,” “renew,” and “refine,” thus spelling Revo“r”ia with an “r” rather than Revo“l”ia with an “l”; illustrating the company’s determination to reborn to a new stage. The brand logo illustrates a bird soaring across the fertile land towards a rising sun and this signifies our customers’ continuous flight to success with FUJIFILM Business Innovation.”
This rationale for the new brand appears to be a strong statement and is probably a bit overwhelming for some viewers. It is certainly something FUJIFILM Business Innovation and the new products need to live up to.
As a preparation for new launches and a new, global approach to the market having a strong, independent brand name makes a lot of sense. It will help build up a portfolio of products under an easily recognizable name.
The New Products
In June, FUJIFILM Business Innovation launched the first two new model lines with a total of nine products under the Revoria brand name in Japan. FUJIFILM Business Innovation states that these launches are new products. However, experience tells that a launched product is rarely totally new and rather is built on a predecessor model.
In the case of the Revoria Press PC1120, the predecessor is undeniably the Iridesse. The device was launched in 2017 and gained a lot of market recognition on its capability to use two specialty toners in one pass. Given that background, the statements in Fujifilm’s product announcement release make sense, when speaking about the “new features” of the PC1120. The new features are:
- New air suction feeder and static electricity removal device for better feeding of more difficult to handle substrates.
- Automatically dividing image data into five colors including CMYK and pink. By using the fluorescent properties of a pink toner, the image can be brightened, especially advantageous for brighter and smoother skin tones.
- Artificial Intelligence for automatic image correction for photo images. The image correction is suitable for different conditions, such as images that are too dark/too bright, backlighting, and inadequate colors for human skin and blue skies.
Revoria Press PC1120
The second model line is the monochrome Revoria Press E1 series, consisting of eight products in different speeds (from 100 to 136 ppm) and in a copier/printer or printer only versions. They seem to be based on the B9136/B9125/B9110/B9100 models. Few details have been published on these products so far. They will cover light production black-and-white markets as production workhorses in the background of CRDs, quick printers, and similar print shops.
FUJIFILM Business Innovation has launched new products under the Fujifilm brand, both for the office and production environments, while they also continue to sell Fuji Xerox branded products during the brand-transition period. We can assume that with their next product upgrades or relaunches many of the production models will reappear under the Revoria brand name.
Going Global
The big question among all developments continues to be how FUJIFILM Business Innovation will go global. The company has a range of attractive products, a new brand name, and surely more products in the pipeline. Fuji Xerox had their own line of continuous-feed inkjet presses as well, with the 1400 and 2800 Inkjet Color Continuous Feed Printing Systems and the more recently launched 11000 Inkjet Press. The latter already uses Samba inkjet heads from Fujifilm. So far, no statement has been released on the future of these products. However, they would be a good complement to Fujifilm’s own inkjet portfolio.
For the time being the Revoria models are only available in the former Fuji Xerox sales territories of Japan and the Asia Pacific, where the company has an extensive sales and service network. October onwards other geographies will be added in a step-by-step process.
Moving into other geographies, FUJIFILM Business Innovation has a starting point in the established Fujifilm direct sales or dealer organisations. Obviously, those channels need to be trained on the new products and additional staff will be necessary. It is envisioned that a mix of direct and indirect sales organisations will continue. It is likely that FUJIFILM Business Innovation will make full use of the synergy within the Fujifilm Group by working closely with the sales and service activities of the Fujifilm Graphic systems Business, which is e.g., already selling the inkjet products globally.
Apart from the long-established competitors like Canon, KM, and Ricoh, FUJIFILM Business Innovation now has Xerox not only as a partner but as a competitor as well. With the Revoria products, there is some differentiation from Xerox in hardware, but the bigger differentiation will be in DFE and workflow. Users can look forward to the additional competition and choices this will offer. While the brand profile of Fujifilm in digital printing might still be a bit lower outside their traditional territories, the company strength of Fujifilm and its long-term business strategy make it a player to be reckoned with in the future.
